A user's desktop computer and personal information managers, such as in PDAs and cell phones, typically maintain lists of contacts. These contact lists store information about each contact including items, such as: name, job title, company name, business number, home number, fax number, mobile number, email addresses, web pages, and the like. The contact lists can become very long. For example, some contact lists may include everyone in a large company. Finding contacts within these contact lists can be difficult. Additionally, the mobile devices typically do not contain all of the contacts that are available to the user on his desktop machine. As a result, a user may not be able to find a contact on their mobile device that they need. What is needed is a way to maintain contacts on a device such that the user has access to the contacts that they need.